1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to backing up information in a computing system. More particularly, some examples of the invention concern broadcasting available backup services and/or querying a backup infrastructure as part of a process for backing up data.
2. Description of Related Art
Important data is often stored in computing systems. Frequently, a backup copy of data is made to prevent data from being lost if data becomes corrupted. If data becomes corrupted, the data can be restored from the backup copy. Consequently, it is important to be able to reliably back up data.
In a typical backup implementation, a backup client obtains data that is to be backed up, for example data from a database, and sends the data to a backup server. The backup server then stores the data on a storage device, such as a hard disk drive or tape. To retrieve the backup copy of the data, the backup server obtains the data from the storage device and sends the data to the backup client.
In modern computing systems, operations for backing up and restoring data are very complex. For example, there are several different types of backups that may be performed. Different types of backups include, for example, full, incremental (which includes all data since the previous incremental backup), differential (which includes all data since the previous full backup), copy (wherein the database does not truncate logs), LAN-free (which is over Fibre Channel), serverless (which bypasses the server such that data is sent directly from a host to a backup storage device), third party (wherein the data is sent directly from a host storage device to a backup storage device), and snapshot (wherein a copy of a file is saved before the file is updated).
Complex backup and restore operations often require 50% or more of a database administrator's time. Further, the complexity increases when backup types such as snapshot, LAN-free, serverless, and third party copy, for example, are utilized. Due to this complexity, there is a significant chance that an administrator will make a mistake that jeopardizes valuable data. Although there are known techniques for automating some backup operations, these automation techniques require a substantial amount of human intelligence, planning, and monitoring. Consequently, known techniques for backing up data are often inadequate.